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Tag Archives: Canada

There’s no essay-length topic rumbling around in the brain to write about, so how about a couple of quick hit items.

The Best and Worst Places for Women in Canada

So this year the best place for women to live in Canada is Victoria, BC and the worst is Windsor, Ontario. This is the same bullshit “study” that last year determined Kitchener-Waterloo was the worst place to live for women largely because to the “wage gap” between women and men despite the fact that women in K-W earned more per capita than women in other cities around the country. But wait – men made even more, therefore the wage gap was larger than average ipso facto K-W was a bad city for women to live in. No accounting for the fact that many women might be married or partnered to some of these higher earning men and thereby experience a higher standard of living than they might enjoy elsewhere.

If you went by this study then the best place for a woman to live in Canada would be a) where all the political representatives/leaders are women, b) where there is no violence against women, c) where women are the top wage earners and in positions of power.

Sounds like Paradise Island ruled by the Amazons with Wonder Woman as their protector. That’s the goal – a world without men. If only we could start replicating female humans in a test tube, I’m sure that’d be the feminist dream for the future of the world.

Speaking of Feminists

Again, some clueless person refers to Sophie Gregoire-Trudeau as a “warrior”. We know that all perspective has been lost, but c’mon. The Battle of Verdun in 1916 saw almost 650,000 killed and another million wounded over a nine month period. Men literally drowning in mud holes created by artillery blasts that they couldn’t climb out of. Corpses everywhere. Miles and miles of barbed wire with machine gunned bodies stuck on it. Mustard gas. Cholera and dysentery. But those men fought on. What on earth would those souls think about their sacrifices so that two gal-pals can ride around on their Vespa or what they’d think of a generation that holds them up as some sort of ideal?

Stephen Crowder made fun of Emma Watson’s speech to the UN a few months ago. Isn’t it wonderful when a person with so much wealth and fame can lecture us about our “privilege”? I’m sure the roofer, toiling up a ladder three floors high, carrying 2 bundles of shingles to work precariously on a massively sloped roof would love it if you yelled at them, “you lucky privileged bastards! Stop oppressing Emma Watson!”

PS – where are their helmets? Oh wait, they’re so oppressed that these two attractive women can’t be arsed to wear legally mandated helmets because then people (men) wouldn’t be able to see how beautiful they are.

I will contend that 90% of the SJW movement is evil. C’mon, you say, misguided maybe, but evil? But I’m sure that communists and Nazis didn’t think what they were trying to bring to the world was evil, but now in the fullness of time the great majority of us can look back and say yep, those were evil ideologies, they killed a lot of people and made hundreds of millions of people miserable. Same thing here – they’re bullies, they’re enemies of free speech, they’re anti-life (abortion, assisted suicide), they’re misandrists, segregationists and against scientific progress and economic prosperity. If they took over we’d live in a completely miserable world. That’s evil.

You want proof on what kind of horrible people we’re talking about? See this clip. What a POS.

On the one hand you have the supposed forces of diversity; take for example the female German politician who neglected to report her own rape at the hands of three Arab migrants because she was afraid of the racial backlash against Arabs that reporting her crime might provoke. Only after there were subsequent attacks was her friend able to convince her to come forward to the police with her own story. She certainly signaled her virtues to the world – it was more important for her to avoid potentially negative characterizations of a specific race than protect other women from the same fate. It’s as though had she come forward she would be the bad person, not her attackers. Multi-culturalism practiced as a doctrine for being a good quiet victim. It’s not the victim blaming feminists so decry, but it’s close; it’s simply on the hierarchy of grievances and victim-hood, Muslims rank higher than women.

But then you have the forces of segregation; Black Lives Matter, Idle No More, etc. Ever wonder what it is exactly that these people want? As a Canadian this ridiculousness is particularly insulting; we are not a country with anywhere near the history of racism that the US has, so why is this abomination being imported from that country? Sure, we have done some bad things as a nation to First Nations, interning Japanese and refusing Jewish refugees during WWII and such, no Western nation has a flawless record on that front. No serious person would argue that we are a country free of racism, sexism, homophobia et al, but you cannot convince the majority that racism against blacks or other identifiable groups is either “systemic” or endemic in Canada, or in Toronto particularly.

One idea that gets pounded is the idea that white people, because of their “privilege” cannot understand the condition and lives of black people or any other visible minority in our country. That is intellectually absurd. By extension then how could a black person understand the life of say, a Chinese immigrant? How could the straight Chinese immigrant understand the life of gay Chinese immigrant? How could that gay Chinese immigrant understand the life of that trans-gendered Aboriginal wo/man? How could that trans-gendered Aboriginal wo/man understand the life of a paraplegic lesbian Muslim from Pakistan? How can I understand my neighbor? He has a teenage daughter and lives 25m north of where I live, his perspective on life must be different than mine… and on and on.

At some point if you carry that argument to its logical conclusion you could argue that it is impossible for any of us to understand each other, because we are individuals. We all develop as persons with our own experiences that colour who and what we are and determine our cognitive biases. For a society to function successfully we have to accept that others will be able to, for the most part, understand us and our concerns. So when you say that that is impossible then what these people argue for is segregation; the ability to exist under a separate set of laws and conditions. There doesn’t have to be physical separation of groups to have segregation, all it requires is that there are different rules for different people. And when you provide different rules for one group then every group wants its own rules. Including whites who then turn to a Donald Trump in the US and argue, hey it’s our turn for special treatment.

Perhaps it’s not all that different from the German politician who didn’t want to report her Arab rapists – she believed that they, because of their identity, should be allowed to operate under a set of different expectations for allowable behavior. This is what progressive white guilt has created; a society that every day seems more and more hell-bent on dividing into little identity groups, white, black, straight, gay, woman, single, married, native, migrant, Muslim, Christian, atheist, kids, no kids… nothing approaching a nation or unifying culture.

Unifying culture? What a quaint idea. Here’s Justin Timberlake, a pop star that does “black” dance moves and emulates Michael Jackson wherever and whenever possible. He tweets in support of a blatantly racist speech made by a black actor at the BET awards and gets hit with a request to stop appropriating black culture. What? Should we whites then volley back with blacks should stop appropriating “white” culture in the form pianos, keyboards, guitars, brass horns… recording equipment? Turntables? Records? CDs? Where is this headed?

You’d think the left would applaud cultural appropriation. Isn’t cultural appropriation is just another word for multi-culturalism, which as we’ve discussed, is a key goal of the left… but it also is simultaneously a tool of oppression by the white Patriarchy? What? Is this an example of “intersectionality” or whatever they call this crap when they teach it in universities? I can’t keep up.

Two hundred years from now we can only hope people will look back on this time in history and laugh at what utter morons we all were.

Why not? Let’s have another opinion on Brexit from someone who isn’t British or lives in England.

It’s awesome; a fantastic victory for the right over the left. And not the “far-right” as the progressives clambers over each other to proclaim at how shocked andappalled they are by the victory of racists and bigots. No, a victory for the right that rejects ideas of over-arching government bureaucracy and micro-managing of every little aspect of your life, a rejection of the idea that one-size-fits-all policies and pan-continental/world government should take precedence over local and community solutions and desires.

The EU over-reached; had it simply remained a free-trade bloc with the capacity for labour and goods to move freely within its members this would never have happened and the original goal of the EU, post WW-II, of a more integrated Europe to prevent future military conflicts, would have been achieved. But no, it decided to pursue a pan-European government, a one-size fits all pan-European currency, and saddle the continent with a largely unaccountable bureaucracy that nobody really cared for.

The Leave campaign argued that the U.K. is being prevented from negotiating free trade deals with the US, Canada, Asia et. al. by its ties to the continent which has been experiencing near zero growth for the past decade. That’s not anti-trade or isolationist, it’s a valid belief that the economic grass is indeed greener on the other side. The proof is in the pudding; strikes and protests are going on right now in France about such minor reforms to labour laws that we here in Canada have to laugh, but it’s so hard to hire and fire people that the French economy has stagnated. Germany has so few young people that its economy has been stalled for years and so it’s come to Merkel taking a massive gamble that letting in over a million Syrian men will give their economy the boost of young labour and entrepreneurs it desperately needs. Really? Then you have basket-case countries like Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal and others that can barely pay their bills and need massive floats of funding from other countries who know, deep down, that they will never see that money back again.

The economic arguments are there, the sovereignty-erosion arguments are there. So the left have to dip into making last ditch arguments about racism and xenophobia. Take for example our virtue-signaler in chief, John Oliver, who does these long form TV essays on issues he wants to expound upon from the angle of his choosing, but when he does get caught out because his facts are wrong or he chooses to omit certain key arguments, he just says “I’m a comedian, not a journalist.” He gets to have his cake and eat it too. But on this issue even he can’t float the Remain boat for too long on the basis of legitimate arguments and of course, slips into the Nigel Farage is a racist bigot etc. argument.

Here’s what the Left do really well – they END arguments. They don’t WIN them, but they are very good at ENDING them. They simply try to discredit the other side as being racist, homophobic, and bigoted, climate-deniers etc. and they unilaterally declare arguments are OVER. The Left has a long track record in recent years of being tremendously successful at doing this. But they tried that here, and it didn’t work. This is why there’s going to be so much anger and angst in the next few weeks and months. This is a bad precedent for the Left, and we on the right have been given a reason to cheer for a change.

There is this romantic notion in Canada and the US about indigenous peoples that has been perpetuated by that great disseminator of academic thought and historic accuracy, Hollywood. The Indian Brave is;

…peaceful, kills only to eat or to defend his family, and is not wasteful. The Brave is a spiritual, mystic guardian of the land who exists in harmony with, and as icon of America’s wilderness past, as if he were an eagle or a buffalo rather than human. He is often represented in picturesque nature, showcasing some “natural” skill admired for its primitive purity, like hunting buffalo or riding a horse. The Brave imagery usually includes excessive traditional dress (especially a splendid headdress), thereby reinforcing his flawless naturalness. As a mythic icon of the past, the Brave lacks humanity. Consequentially, the Brave is always shown as stoic, lacking any real emotion, especially humor. This section also includes imagery that romanticizes the traditional Native lifestyle since it is often a key part of Brave depictions.

The romantic notion that indigenous North American peoples were somehow pure and noble and had a culture on par with western cultures is killing people, not metaphorically, but literally. This misrepresentation and cultural relativism is now killing modern natives across Canada.

Cultural relativism is one of the key stones of the progressive left’s belief system and it is defined as such;

Cultural relativism is the principle of regarding the beliefs, values, and practices of a culture from the viewpoint of that culture itself. … In sociology, the principle is sometimes practiced to avoid cultural bias in research, as well as to avoid judging another culture by the standards of one’s own culture. For this reason, cultural relativism has been considered an attempt to avoid ethnocentrism. Cultural relativism is related to but often distinguished from moral relativism, the view that morality is relative to a standard, especially a cultural standard.

The bolding of words is mine.

So, when little Makayla Sault dies because her parents elected to use “traditional” treatments for her leukemia, instead of western medical treatments, what happens? We’re so cowed by political correctness, so flushed with the romantic notion of the noble Brave, so unwilling to break the 11th Commandment (Thou Shalt Not Judge) and declare these “traditional” treatments to be a load of bullshit, we do nothing and stand by while the little girl dies. One needs only go on Google and does a short five minute search to find all sorts of other similar tragic stories.

Oh, but wait. Here’s a hippie couple equally as evil, negligent and pie-in-the-sky retarded and they’re on trial (and rightly so). What’s the difference here? Race perhaps? As one commenter in the Lethbridge Herald article so aptly puts it:

“Children have a right to evidence-based medical care, not just prayer and useless folk remedies.”

Whoa, whoa. Apparently, Makayla Sault didn’t have that right. Because we’re in fact the worst opposite of being racist, we’re deferential. So when native leaders scream in the wake of the suicides in Attawapiskat, the shootings in La Loche, that these and other tragedies are the results of racism in Canada, it’s just the opposite. Canada has given natives plenty of sovereignty, plenty of cultural protections (to the point of promoting it as actually being Canadian culture), and most of all plenty, plenty of cash, to the tune of billions a year. According to the Calgary Herald:

…in 2013/14, Health Canada spent almost $1.1 billion on supplementary benefits such as dental care, vision care and pharmaceutical drugs for eligible First Nations and Inuit Canadians. That coverage is not required by treaties or by the Constitution. And most other Canadians must spend out-of-pocket or buy insurance for such items.

Something is not working with how we’ve approached natives in Canada and we’ve let the left and their insistence on cultural relativism dominate the discussion. When I see TV clips of Attawapiskat, I see a shit hole in the middle of nowhere, with dirt roads and run down modular houses that have boarded up windows, but teenage girls hanging around wearing tight designer jeans. I see boys wearing baseball caps with NBA logos. I see satellite dishes on every home. Jonathan Kay wrote a fantastic article that pointed out, sadly, the following:

Generations ago, aboriginal men in this part of Canada would hunt seal or caribou and come back from the hunt as celebrated providers. But the old skills required to live off the land are either dead or dying — and they’re unnecessary to modern life, in any event. On a tour of Attawapiskat with a former First Nations chief I learned that local homeowners lacked even the basic skills to keep up a pre-fab home, which is why the government has to keep replacing the buildings.

So they want to live in the middle of nowhere, as part of their cultural authenticity, but don’t even have the skills to practice their culture as they romantically remember it.

At some point, some politician has to risk getting labelled as a racist, has to brave the storm of political correctness and just say that enough is enough. You are either participants in our modern society or you are not. The left’s insistence in letting native leaders, willfully blind to the erosion of their backwards cultures in the face of modernity, sequester their own people into remote places, places without hope, all in the name of preserving some romantic notion about a proud people living off the land is killing them. The left are the true racists here.

But it does beggar the question why the NDP feels the need to commit hari-kari on the altar of ludicrous faux-marxist, climate-fascist ideals. And why are so many people, young people especially, turning to the discredited ideas of socialism, pulling old tired tropes off of the scrap heap of history? From the NDP in Canada taking itself to the brink of adopting the Leap Manifesto, to Bernie Sanders in the U.S. and Jeremy Corbyn leading the labour party in the U.K., we see socialism becoming more and more popular at the same time that far right movements are gaining steam in Europe, and a nativist movement in the form of Donald Trump’s candidacy having a legitimate political impact in the U.S. This is frightening, because the far right and the far left often find themselves having an incredible amount of common ground in their pursuit of some mythical “purity”, either of race, culture or ideology and their willingness to adopt authoritarian means to achieve that purity.

“Jeremy Corbyn was born in 1949. Stalin was still in power then. Since then we have been through the Korean War, the 1956 Hungarian revolution, the Prague Spring and its subsequent repression, the Communist takeover of Viet Nam and Laos, the Khmer Rouge genocide in Cambodia, the fall of Eastern European Communism, the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Tiananmen Square and the recent upswing in Russian revanchism. We have also seen free markets and the rule of Law lift billions out of utter destitution, leaving mainly untouched those areas where the Left still has sway. Despite all this, Corbyn still cleaves to the most disgusting, barbarous ideology that has been seen on Earth since the Conquistadors put the kibosh on Aztec thoracic surgery. That’s not misguided. That’s evil. Just because he looks like a geography teacher shouldn’t let him off the hook. He is a wicked man busily surrounding himself with wicked (mainly) men and a few wicked women. We should not be afraid to state, plainly and repeatedly, what he is and what he stands for. To do any less is to acquiesce in his vileness.”

So true; we should never ever forget how essentially wicked these people and what they stand for truly are. Upon an honest review of history, their policies have left people not just destitute but have invited the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse to march through humanity unabated, leaving massive destruction in their wake. Naomi Klein and her Al-Jazeera loving husband Avi Lewis will never experience the pain their evil ideologies would rain down on people because they’re part of the glitterati, the intellectual class that can jet around the world, making small talk at parties over glasses of champagne and organically sourced appetizers about the evils of capitalism and the desperate need the end to all fossil fuels, all while conveniently ignoring their own personal hypocrisy.

A relatively unaccomplished but charismatic young(er) man, married to an attractive woman, with two adorable kids, incredibly, improbably becomes the leader of his country after only a brief and, by all objective accounts, unspectacular spell in elected office. He is elected on the winds of change and hope, positivism and restoration. The nation breaks out in celebration when he wins, because he represents a relief to the masses of people oppressed by the previous regime’s catering to corporate interests, war mongering, and willful ignorance of environmental catastrophes. He is almost immediately awarded international recognition for things he hasn’t done, but rather what he has promised to do.

I guess then here’s some predictions based on how things went south of the border since 2008;

The Canadian economy will not only continue to flat-line, but decline over his next 5 years as Prime Minister. Oil will not be coming back, his (and the compliant provinces’) environmental policies will continue to hamstring manufacturing and natural resource based businesses and the country’s financial position will grow increasingly precarious as the federal and provincial governments continue to run massive deficits in the name of “stimulus”;

Files that the federal Liberals had promised to improve upon the Conservative’s hard and mean ways, like aboriginal rights and reparations, women’s rights et al actually get worse, not better;

Despite retreating from military conflicts and hard lifting in the world’s trouble spots we still suffer from increased Islamic jihadist activity on Canadian soil; and yet

Like this:

We won’t spend too much time on Justin Trudeau’s foreign policy, because we’re clearly un-Canadian in our views according to the (ex-Marxist) Stephane Dion, and thank God the Liberals are here to get the country back to its (supposed) pacifist roots.

JT’s dismissal of ISIL as a threat to Canada or western existence is a disgusting pretense for pulling our bombers. We’ve talked before how it’s an odd contradiction that we argue our bombers are meaningless (about 2% of the total bombing missions in Iraq to date) and yet he’s hungry to castrate our economy on the altar of climate change (our GHG emissions being about 1.5% of the global total, and falling).

Yes, if you’d like to be technical JT, ISIL or whatever Islamic terrorist group you want to consider are not bringing an end to the West any time soon. But they’re bringing an end to Middle East stability. They’re influencing terrorist attacks in Europe and the US. Europe has now done a severe about-face and is starting to round-up and deport hundreds of thousands of Muslim men whose asylum is illegitimate, and that’s going to get downright ugly before it’s over. France, an ally, is at war with these people.

We don’t buy that it’s just JT trying to save face by holding to an election promise. It’s Liberal arrogance that Canada can live in a vacuum and that our multi-culti values will immunize us from any of the problems in the rest of the world, we’re the Great Hotel, come check in and get a room, service is first-rate.

There’s a solution to the whole Syrian refugee crisis; go in, wipe out Assad and ISIS, install a proxy-state and establish stability with force. It’s simple, but simple things are not necessarily easy. Training? Aid? For what and for whom?

Like this:

There he goes again, suggesting (not for the first time) that we arrest Stephen Harper for his “criminal” inaction on climate change.

We’re not the best ones to make arguments against the whole climate change hysteria, there are plenty of excellent persons and blogs that are dedicated to that cause, and we defer to them.

But it boils down to four questions about the Climate Change debate.

Is Climate Change real?

Maybe. Sure. The earth has gone through a great number of climate change cycles during it’s existence, including several ice ages and several hot-house periods. They’ve found alligator bones near the Arctic Circle… did those alligators drive there in their SUV’s? But for the sake of argument here, let’s concede that the earth is in fact warming…. again.

2. Is Climate Change man-made?

This is where the IPCC term “anthropogenic global warming” or AGW comes in, i.e. that man made “pollutants” (if you consider carbon dioxide a pollutant) is the main cause of Climate Change. This is more contentious. You may get us to concede that AGW is a contributor, but to what extent? What percentage of our current global warming can be directly attributed to our carbon dioxide emissions? There is no answer that quantifies it. But again, let’s concede for the sake of argument that we are contributing some appreciable amount to the current global warming.

3. Are the effects of Climate Change catastrophic?

Here’s where we go rogue; no. Virtually every IPCC prediction for the doomsday effects of AGW on the earth, from the early part of the century to recently have been false. Global sea levels – more or less the same… no flooding of Miami or islands in the South Pacific. Himalaya glaciers melted by 2013? Just the opposite in fact, ice caps have increased, not only in the Himalayas but in parts of the Arctic and Antarctic. Global temperatures have more or less held steady for the past 18 years, despite claims to the contrary about the “hottest year on record” et al. Climate models have failed to accurately predict future conditions thus far, so why are we trusting that they will get it right eventually? The effects of Climate Change will not be catastrophic or something that we cannot adapt to.

4. Do you trust the government to stop Climate Change?

Hell, no. And last time we checked, there was no WORLD GOVERNMENT that could force China, India, Russia and Brazil to hold their carbon output. Canada is a mere 1.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions, and of that 0.7% was attributed to the oil sands, which is slowing down given global gas prices.

So, David Suzuki is an unfortunate example of that poor soul who shouts into an echo chamber and thinks his own thoughts said out loud are validation of his dumb ideas. He cannot predict the effects of climate change, so what are we arresting Harper for? And Harper was supposed to do what to stop global warming?

Stephane Dion, our Minister of Foreign Affairs was recently at the NATO meetings where they discussed primarily the mission against the Islamic State. He rationalized Canada’s decision to pull out of participating in air strikes by citing that Canada accounted for only 2 % (2.4% actually) of the total air strikes made in recent months against the IS. In other words, why are we bothering? Our contribution is just token participation, we’re not really affecting any change over there. Fair point. Generally, we’re always in favour of substance over symbolism.

As it happens, while Dion is pulling our planes out of Syria, our new Prime Minister is doing a grand tour that will end in Paris with the grand soiree climate change conference. And he’s promising money left right and centre to fight this that and the other thing with respect to climate change. And his sympatico Kathleen Wynne is about to unveil a carbon tax system that will cripple the Ontario economy even further. Rachel Notley in Alberta brought a carbon tax to Alberta with much fanfare. Canada’s contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions? 1.6%

So, let’s get this straight… 2.4% of airstrikes against IS? Tokenism, why bother? 1.6% of global greenhouse gas emissions? My God, we need to do everything in our power, including tanking our manufacturing and energy sectors of the economy! It’s a moral imperative!

Do you hear it? Angels playing their harps, cherubic children’s choirs singing, hippies strumming their guitars… we’ve done it! The new messiah has been sworn in as Prime Minister!

Leah McLaren takes point on writing today’s installment of fellating-our-new-Prime Minister. There is some wonderful stuff here;

I’m not sad about it. I’m delighted – for my country, for him, for the beautiful, beaming Sophie with her yoga-sculpted curves and wavy hair in a fashionable shade of “bronde” (half brown, half blonde). I’m happy for their three kids – the girl, the boy and the cherubic, bright-eyed baby. I imagine them all in their sunny kitchen on a Saturday morning, making oat-bran pancakes and chatting in a perfect blend of French and English about all the things they are going to do that will astonish people. Things like: laughing and smiling with conviction, having an open dialogue with the media, letting cabinet ministers say what they want and just generally being nice.

And if that wasn’t enough for you;

At some moments I feel about Justin Trudeau the way Truman Capote felt about the socialite Babe Paley: “She had only one flaw: She was perfect – other than that she was perfect.”

Oh Leah, don’t feel like that! Justin is actually quite unaccomplished as well. Don’t feel self-conscious about your failure of a life.

I had a little cry when I saw the election results, not only because I was happy and relieved for the country but because, looking at the beaming face of the man my own age we had chosen to run it, I realized that life had just got very, very real.

Yes, very real!

For my generation, Trudeau seems to be the opposite of a letdown. If anything, he’s a reminder that we need to raise the bar, to do better, or at least give our wildest dreams a shot.

Prediction – these people are doomed for devastating disappointment. They have slipped on the banana peel of delusion and imbued our new Prime Minister with all the leftist dreams of a messianic charismatic Leader of the Left come to deliver them to the promised world.

Well, delusion meet the real world. He can’t (and won’t) do half of what you want him to do. Thankfully.